Hive in big trouble

[Pete]

Due to work and weather i havent been able to get into my hives for more than a month.

Around 6 weeks ago i relocated the hives across my yard about 80m. I lot of bees were lost. So many went back to the original spot, i think maybe even the queen of one hive? This hive is definitely queenless now and it wasnt before i moved it. Its the only hive i had with an excluder under the 3rd box (it came to me like that). When i looked at it yesterday the excluder was covered in dead drones (weird i didnt think they could get through it in the first place). It had 25% of the bees remaining and lots of wax moth. It's really deteriorated quickly.

I will order some wax month spray online (bee store is miles away), but in the meantime i have another really quiet swarm that has drawn out 4 frames of brood and honey. Would it be sensible to reduce the poor hive to one box, introduce my calm swarm and brood etc and they will hopefully get enough strength to finish off the was moth? I will freeze and save all of the remaining frames.

thoughts?

[OzBuzz]

Just a thought but could you have a laying worker? That would explain the drones above the excluder...so long as you can rule out a laying worker you should be fine doing what you propose-being queenless they should readily accept the swarm colony. Maybe take the frames from the nuc the swarm is in and take your best, non wax moth infested, frames from your existing hive-smoke heavily and put them together

[kathyp]

hard to say what  happened to your hive but the swarm idea should work ok.  what i would do is dump the bees from the bad hive in front of the other  hive. take that box away.  the bees will find their way to the other hive and the combining will be easier.  alternately, do a newspaper combine just as you would anytime.  it's safer than just tossing them together.

in the future DO NOT leave an excluder under the boxes.  they should only be used that way temporarily too keep the queen from a new swarm in.  if the queen in that hive died, a new queen might not have been able to get out and mate....and you saw what happened to your drones.

[Anybrew]

Hi Pete, one of my hives has collapsed in exactly the same manner as yours and it was a wriggling mess of wax moth larve.
I frozen the comb for three days and have taken the super off and I am trying hard to save this colony.  I gave them a comb of brood and some supplies.
Wax moth spray??? where do you get it?
Cheers
Steve

[Mardak]

I reckon putting the frames in the freezer works every time. I would be concerned about the chemical and other skat in the moth spray, what is the cost of such a spray? Putting other frames in with or without drawn comb will do the job. Good luck.

[Jim 134]

 Pete...
<I will order some wax month spray online>  As at (Bt)  And can you get (Bt) bacilus thuringus  down under 

    I can get at in the USA.
 

     bacilus thuringus is a bacteria that controls all kind of worms in gardening as all the gardeners may know .

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis

   BEE HAPPY Jim 134